A shopper is fighting for his life in hospital after a Christmas ‘trolley rage’ attack.

The 60-year-old victim broke a hip and wrist when he was knocked to the ground by a woman in a Marks & Spencer store.

Staff said the woman appeared to have launched the attack because the man had failed to get out of her way fast enough.

The altercation happened while the man shopped in The Glades shopping centre in Bromley High Street

The extraordinary incident took place on December 22 as hundreds of people filled the large store in Bromley, South-East London.

Four days later the victim’s condition worsened and he is now in intensive care.

His alleged attacker, who is 30, was arrested at home on Boxing Day and questioned on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm.

One M & S employee said the
victim was left sprawled on the floor in agony after what appears to
have been a ‘moment of madness’.

He said: ‘She just seems to have rammed
into him. It is everyone’s nightmare. We have seen it so many times in
the food hall, people are just so impatient these days.’

The trolley rage clash took place in the Glades shopping mall at around 1pm on one of the busiest pre-Christmas shopping days.

Witnesses told police the woman, who
has no criminal convictions, shoved the man with her trolley, knocking
him to the ground. He was taken to the Princess Royal University
Hospital in Farnborough, Kent, for treatment to a broken hip and wrist
and other minor injuries.

Shopping shock: The row allegedly broke out while the man was shopping in a Marks and Spencer

But his health rapidly deteriorated and last night police described his condition as ‘critical but stable’.

The woman was questioned and released on bail to return to Bromley police station on January 29 pending further inquiries.

The clash is the latest in a growing number of so-called ‘trolley rage’ incidents in our supermarkets.

In November 2011, Hayley Cook, then
a 24-year-old pregnant mother, was jailed for a year after breaking a
woman’s pelvis outside a branch of Tesco in Ramsgate

The court heard she swore violently at Lynne White and crashing her trolley into her, also trapping her own son’s hand.

In March that year police were called to Morrisons in Weymouth, Dorset, to break up a fight between shoppers.

An elderly man was left with a head
wound after two shoppers bumped their trolleys into each other and a
brawl broke out. Of the latest incident, a Metropolitan Police spokesman
said: ‘It is understood that the man, aged 60, was struck with a
trolley being pushed by a woman.

‘He fell to the ground and sustained injuries including a broken hip and wrist, and was taken to a Kent hospital for treatment.

‘On Wednesday, December 26, officers
were informed that the man had suffered further health complications and
that he was now in a critical condition.